Bed Rest
by nightdhade
Summary: As per doctor's orders, she spends the first week relaxing. Pepper's bed rest sentence brings Tony a perverse amount of pleasure but she has to draw the line when he tries to follow her into the bathroom. Post Iron Man 3, Pepper has the extremis removed, Tony dotes.


Waking up in that hospital bed kinda felt like waking up for the first time.

"Morning, sleeping beauty." Tony says, seated beside her in his own hospital gown. He's got a screwdriver in one hand and some hunk of charred technology in the other. He looks like he's been there all night.

"Morning." Pepper croaks back. Her voice is hoarse from lack of use and she gropes for the glass of water on the bedside shelf. Tony hands it to her instead. When she looks at her own arm, holding the cheap plastic glass, it is pale and freckled and blissfully hers. She drinks the whole thing without stopping.

"Easy, tiger" Tony says, dropping his toys, he takes the glass from her when she's done and sets it down. "You've been out for a week, don't overdue to the drinking thing or you'll yack and I love you but it'd probably be on me and nobody wants that."

He's kind of right and Pepper feels a wave of nausea rise in her gut; she has to shut her eyes till it passes. Tony is there when she opens them, closer than before. So close and so worried, Pepper can hear his voice in her head, "let go, honey."

Neither of them say anything for a long moment until Pepper steels herself and smiles.

"Morning." She says again, clearer, clear.

Tony beams.

"Is everything alright? I mean, did you get that stuff out of me?"

"Mhm," he hums. "You're 100% extremis free, no more glowing." One of Tony's hands slip down her wrist, a single finger over her green-blue veins. He watches her watch him and smiles, disarmingly sweet, when she looks up.

"How long until we get released?" Pepper asks, watching Tony settle back into his bedside chair. The screwdriver and metal stay on the floor.

"Me," Tony says, "I get the green light whenever I want, just had a lot of bruising and maybe some internal bleeding. You on the other hand, you're stuck here another week, at best."

Pepper groans and drags her hands down her face, she is suddenly reminded that after a week passed out, she probably looks like hell. This is horrible.

"A week?" She asks, "Seriously?"

Tony looks like he's trying very hard not to crack up and Pepper wonders how somebody wearing a glorified paper dress can manage to still looks so dignified, let alone smug.

"Well," Tony drawls, "The doctor's said she could let you out early, on the condition that you stay with someone who knows how to handle medical emergencies of this nature."

Pepper pins him with a glare. He's stalling.

"Lucky for you, I've spent the last few days reading up on bio-engineered viruses."

Like the Grinch, Pepper feels her heart grow three sizes in her chest, swelling up and pressing at her ribs with love for a man who'd plow through a whole medical textbook just so she could go home.

The monitor goes haywire, her heart keeps pressing, a mob of doctors storm the room.

The last thing she remembers is laughing at Tony, ass bare at the back of his gown, scrambling out of the way, while they pressed the oxygen mask over her mouth.

It's ok but she ends up staying an extra 2 days.

* * *

Their house is gone. The sprawling Malibu mansion has been erased, wiped off the earth like a house of cards into the sea. Tony drives by the site on the way back from the hospital, letting her peer out the car window, wrapped in blankets. She doesn't quite know why she asked him to take her here. It's all been cleared out, there's nothing left but the concrete foundation. When Pepper looks at Tony, steals a glance, his knuckles are white against the steering wheel and his mouth is a grim slash across his face. Pepper thinks back to the message he left her through the suit after the house was bombed, how he sounded so damn sorry. She thinks this place reminds him of his failures. Pepper reaches for his free hand and they do not look back, driving past towards the tower.

* * *

As per doctor's orders, she spends the first week relaxing. Her bed rest sentence brings Tony a perverse amount of pleasure.

He dotes on her outrageously, milks the experience for all its worth. He brings her food and rubs her shoulders and lets her monopolize the tv stations. Pepper supposes she's never let him take care of her, so to speak, and now Tony is taking full advantage of it.

She has to draw the line when he tries to follow her into the bathroom.

On the first day back, she half expects him to go down into the labs, to disappear to disappear into the labyrinth of hallways and labs. Pepper's afraid of it.

But he doesn't. Tony carries her into the tower, up to the bed, and she wriggles and laughs and thumps his chest the whole way. They lay in bed together, watch cheesy soaps and sleep until noon.

The uneasy truce they'd come to when his suits went off, like so many fireworks, grows steadier, finds its footing and holds strong.

By the 4th day, she tries to sneak out of bed. It's 3am and Pepper's desperate.

The need to DO something is like an itch under her skin.

Tony's asleep beside her, snoring softly into the pillow, when she gingerly extracts herself from the covers. She gets one foot onto the ground when he snags her around the waist.

"Where do you think you're going?" Tony asks, voice muffled.

"To the kitchen," Pepper says, squirming in his grasp, fumbling for the right excuse. "I was going to get some juice?"

"the kitchen's down a flight and a half of stairs, Pep. Very steep stairs, I know, I built them. Stairs are strenuous."

"I was gonna take the elevator." She tries.

"The broken one?"

Pepper groans and flops back down onto the bed, drags the blanket over her face and groans into it. When she peels it away, Tony's peering over at her.

"If you seriously want juice, I will get you juice." Tony says, "I don't think we actually have any, I think all we have left is wine and some milk i don't trust, but I like you so much I'll go out at 3am and get you juice. Maybe even that gross, organic stuff you like so much."

Pepper is all for this plan. If he leaves, he can't keep her in bed.

"But," Tony continues, eyes narrowing, "if this is just a ploy to run wild, against doctor's orders I might add, I'm gonna have to get real serious with you, Pepper Potts."

Under the covers, Tony's hand slide up her leg. His palms are rough and they scratch against her skin; it's unbearably nice. It's an invitation.

"You wouldn't dare." Pepper says.

The doctor had ordered bed-rest for a week, no rigorous activity allowed, and Tony hadn't done more than kiss her goodnight.

"Dare what?" Tony asks, feigning innocence. His hand slips higher up her leg, thumb grazing the seam of her underwear. She suddenly feels feverish, hypersensitive.

He starts to rub slow circles over her.

Pepper's eyelids slip down; it's like a switch's been flipped and god, she hasn't been touched in weeks. Tony smiles, white teeth in the dark, and Pepper shuts her eyes to moan.

He goes down on her for a long time then makes love to her as softly as he knows how.

On the seventh day, she leaves the bed.


End file.
